 Hello everyone and welcome to depression to expression. My name is Scott and today we have a very special guest on the channel Her name is Joe. She has her own YouTube channel called trauma talk and it's it's a mental health channel So I thought I would have her on and she's so great to have done this have her on the channel And she's going to have a very interesting topic a very personal topic to talk about Please enjoy and Joe. Thank you so much for coming on the channel I'll see you all in the comments and Joe's links are in the description below Don't forget to subscribe to her. She's a great human being and I'm very fortunate We all are that she took the time to come on this channel today. So stay strong and keep being you and Joe Take it away. Hey guys, it's Joe and I am so excited to be here Scott Thank you for that introduction before I get started Can we just take a moment to thank Scott for the amazing work that he does on this channel? Seriously, thank you so much. You are a rock star Like he said, I'm gonna talk today about faith and mental health If you have talked to many people of faith or if you've been in the Christian community My guess is that you've probably heard lines like oh, you just need to pray about that or that's a spiritual issue Or just take that to God I grew up in that conservative Christian faith background where if you had an issue with mental health It all came back to a spiritual issue Most people were extremely against any kind of medical intervention if you were having a mental health issue It was not a mental health issue. It was an issue of faith so if I was dealing with depression or anxiety, I was given Bible verses and It was essentially treated like I was having a failing of faith Now this was not by everyone But it was by most people and it was like the main message and as it became more entrenched in like the charismatic Christian community it became even worse where if you were having mental health issues, you know, you were Struggling with issues with like being possessed by demons or stuff like that and that got a little more intense but what I really want what I really want to talk about today is this idea that if you are struggling with Anything be that anxiety depression bipolar PTSD that somehow your faith is not strong enough because that was the line that Everything seemed to come back to your faith is not strong enough if you are having a hard time Now I think I dealt with depression from pretty much age 13 onward. I Know for sure that I was really deep in depression by the time I hit college I wrote it off as absolutely everything that I could except that I blamed myself for it. I hated myself for it I thought why couldn't I just fix this by praying harder and getting deeper in scripture and more small groups and going to church more and Like everything like that and just didn't work I was so not okay and at the same time I was dealing with so much anxiety and also tried all the same solutions and Guess what? They didn't work I think We are encouraged in the Christian community to often go to scripture first for answers and there is nothing wrong with that I think that's absolutely an incredible tool Using spirituality as a tool to help improve your mental health is proven across the board to be an amazing thing But one is the only tool that we are allowed to use and when it's also used as a weapon Against using other tools. That's where we have a problem Now I sort of broke out of this mold at age 20 I was sexually assaulted by a pastor who I've been dating for 11 months and that just I mean completely rocked everything it broke my faith it I really don't even have words to describe how much that Took me out of everything I was before and sort of dumped me into this world where I had no idea who I was And so I had a chance to examine all of the preconceived ideas I had and I really started thinking about these issues of mental health and all of the answers I had to them before Now after I was assaulted and after coming out of this incredibly abusive relationship I was more more not okay than ever and I was so depressed. I was so suicidal I was dealing with PTSD and I needed real professional help and I needed in my case Medical intervention as well. I needed I ended up going on antidepressant Which I think in many ways saved my life but it was a tool that I combined with many other things like finding community and support and Exercise and yoga and journaling and writing and art and trying new things and finding new people like Combined with everything that I could to stay afloat to find life again And I combined it with faith as well and that was probably the hardest one for me to reconcile with after what I had been through But where I am now six and a half years after Everything that happened and having had a lot of time to think about faith and mental health I've come to the realization that If you're struggling with anxiety or depression PTSD or bipolar or fill in the blank with whatever Mental health trouble you are having It is not because your faith is not strong enough I just I feel like I could repeat that all day is really not because you are not strong enough or your faith is not strong enough or Anything it's not because you're not praying hard enough. It's not because you haven't read enough scripture It's because there are things that are chemically wrong with our bodies There are things that go wrong in our minds and that's okay You are not to blame for that you are not wrong for that there are a lot of solutions that you can try and Some of it is Investing in your spirituality Some of it is talking to a doctor. Some of it is talking to a counselor. Some of it is Exercise and you know going outside like so many people say to do it's so many things there is no one answer and You are not failing as a Christian Because you are looking for other answers that aren't just God. I fully believe that God has given us so many tools He knows that we struggle with mental health, right? He knows who we are as people if you are a person of any kind of faith who believes in God I'm guessing that you believe that God knows his people He knows what you're dealing with and he wants you to get better. He wants you to be okay He does not want you to suffer. I would encourage you to find help if you are not okay Whether that's like I said going to a doctor going to a counselor going to whoever it is find help Please do not think that the only answer is prayer and scripture because it's not The world is much bigger than that God understands that the world is much better than that God has created a world that is much bigger than that. I think that is really cool. I think that looking at mental health and God like the only answer has to be in a book or You know praying the way we think about it in America is such a small-minded view of God to take like isn't God a lot Bigger than that couldn't you think much bigger than that at least that's where I've come to in my faith Thank you Scott so much for having me on this channel seriously means the world to me and like I said you rock Thank you for everything you're doing